Sir.-I was astounded by the recent letter from Paul Connolly regarding the Hackwood point-to-point. I am a keen supporter of point-to-points and attended the Hackwood event on Easter Monday with friends.

All point-to-point horses are obliged to go hunting on a statutory number of occasions with their local hunt in order to ensure that the events retain a degree of amateurism rather than escalate into the aggressive competitiveness of professional racing.

The event is entirely organised, run and funded by volunteers from the local hunt, who give up their time to sit and judge every fence, put up car park signs, work on the entrance gate and a host of other mundane and thankless tasks, which ensure the event can continue.

If hunting were to finally cave in, Mr Connolly will never have the choice of attending that kind of event ever again. If hunting goes, point-to-points will simply disappear with the one thing that has always been able to gather together so many people to organise events like this voluntarily.

-Henry Bankes, Saffron Walden, Essex.

Sir.-It would be hard for anyone who attends point-to-points to be unaware of the fact that they are run by hunts.

Hounds are paraded and the commentator always gives a brief talk about hunting. The hunts provide hundreds of thousands of people with a good family day out each year.

I feel that Mr Connolly's desire to avoid being told of the unpalatable truth about the way the hunting community has been treated flies in the face of all that is fair.

Our country has had a long tradition of tolerance and liberal democracy. Free speech is an essential element of this. Gagging minorities is not, and never has been, the answer.

-Cathy Fleming, address withheld.